21 Day Challenge: Day 19- The Target Incident

It's amazing how 21 days can fly by! As I write this, we're now on Day 20 of my 21 Day Challenge. I've been sharing bits and pieces of this challenge, and it's been a great way to remain accountable. It was so nice to receive private emails from a few of you about how my little "Jewel Moments" have inspired you. Thanks for following along!

Jewel Moment: Caused a shopping cart collision at Target.
Emotion(s): Panic, fear, worry, embarrassment.
A funny thing happened on the way to Target..... well, actually leaving. As usual, I was multi-tasking trying to fit everything on my daily to do list. I guess I was a little absent minded, and definitely in a rush, and so I did some stupid things on my way out of the store. The first- forgetting the London's diapers. (Now, how could I miss a box of 96 Huggies!) The second, was leaving my cart near the entrance of the store, thinking I would be doing them a "favor" so they would not have to retrieve it from the parking lot. As you read on, you'll soon see that had to be done anyway. So, as I was walking toward my car, guess what was going the other way right into traffic- my shopping cart. I tried to run to get it before it could do any damage, but it was too late! It hit, head on collision with a car heading out of the lot.

My first impulse was to rush up to this very angry woman to apologize and to let her know that I would take care of any damage this caused. Just as I decided to head her way, off she sped angrily in her car. My first thought was relief, but I kinda felt guilty about that, because I was glad I didn't have to deal with her! But then, this other emotion came over me- sadness, because MY action made someone else angry. I don't know if I caused any damage to her car, but that's not the point. Of course I didn't mean for this to happen, but I could have been a little more careful by placing the cart back inside the store.

So, I got back in my car, forgetting that the diapers were nowhere in sight, until a sales associate came rushing out of the store trying flag me down. She displayed a nervous smile when I said-- "I'm surprised you gave these to me since I just created some heavy Karma out here in this parking lot."

Action: As I drove away, I tried to go easy on myself because hey, this is water under the bridge, she's gone. But how could I make up for this? How can I make this experience positive? From that point on, I decided that my goal for the rest of the day was to I make sure that I found a way to make everyone that crossed my path happy, and maybe in some small way the woman in the parking lot may have received some of my good merit through "osmosis" perhaps.

Life can sure have a funny way to teaching us lessons, and to find happiness can sometimes come out of uncomfortable experiences too. This little lesson taught me that there is always a silver lining if you look for it, and just because something may seem negative, there's always potential for a positive on the other side.

Funny how, in a crazy roundabout way, the woman in the Target parking lot was my Buddha-in-Disguise today and she didn't even know it.